Monthly Archives: November 2014

23 years ago, my favourite singer died.
Freddie Mercury was well known for his amazing voice but also for his over the top, larger than life personality on stage.
You wouldn’t call him a good looking guy at all but he was magnificent. And compared to today’s high standards for the perfect look, he was much more than his looks.
They just added to his quirkiness.
Sadly, he died of AIDS in a time when there was still such a huge stigma around the illness and he kept his illness a secret until 2 days before his death. I really feel blessed that people are talking about HIV so much more and are open and comfortable with sharing their HIV status.

More than anything else, I really admired how Freddie was just himself.
He didn’t fit into any mould.
He was unique.
And that is a lesson that can be learned by all of us.
The lyrics for Innuendo say it so well:

You can be anything you want to be
Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be
Be free with your tempo, be free be free
Surrender your ego – be free, be free to yourself

If there’s a God or any kind of justice under the sky
If there’s a point, if there’s a reason to live or die
If there’s an answer to the questions we feel bound to ask
Show yourself – destroy our fears – release your mask
Oh yes we’ll keep on trying

In honour of Freddie’s memory and more importantly, in honour of yourself, throw away your mask.
Stop living a life where your main objective is to please others and to make other people happy.
Stop worrying about what other people think of you or if you “fit” in or not.
You don’t fit in – nobody does!
Be proud to be you because being YOU is good enough.
Better than good enough, it is wonderful!

It doesn’t matter how much negative feedback you get from other sources.
The most destructive type of negative feedback is from your own negative self talk.
That little (although it is sometimes deafeningly loud) voice of doubt.
It is that voice within you that is constantly telling you what you can’t do rather than celebrating your achievements.
It warns you that you are going to fail, or worse, that you are already a failure. And you let that stop you from being awesome and reaching amazing potential.
I have never really found a technique that can absolutely shut off that negative talk and replace it with positive. Mainly because I think that for some bizarre reason, we are almost programmed to think the worst.
But there are definitely things that you can do to encourage positive self talk.

It is not about shouting from the rooftops to the world about how wonderful you are but rather, quietly reassuring yourself that you can do it and that you are worthy of doing it.
A few weeks ago, I tried a craft with my therapy group where we made positive self talk boxes.
It was so easy yet so effective. Both as an enjoyable and simple craft to make with beautiful results but also an effective end product.

Get an empty matchbox and decorate it on the inside and the outside with stickers, paper, ribbon, buttons, feathers, glitter and any other item that you love.
Write or print a positive message for yourself and stick it inside the box.
Once it is dry, put it in your bag or your pocket. Keep it in your desk drawer or next to your computer.
Everytime you need a reminder of something positive, just open the box.
Take a deep breath and affirm the positive message inside.
Now, start to live it!

Like this:

This past week has been all about me being unwell, my kids being sick, family responsibilities, too much work and then, to top it all off – it has been raining incessantly.
None of these are conducive to getting much else done, including taking time out for myself.
And when I found a bit of time for myself, I felt guilty because I have so much else to do.
I should rather be doing that. Shouldn’t I?
No, I shouldn’t!

Never underestimate how important it is just to step away from the ‘craziness’ of the pressure and routine of everyday life and just do something to nurture yourself.
There is absolutely no point in pushing yourself so hard that you end up not being able to get anything done at all.
My day is filled with seeing people who don’t make time for themselves – who spend so much time working and parenting and caregiving that they forget about the most important person – themselves!
And their number one excuse (and one that is popular in my vocabulary too) – “I feel guilty if I don’t give to others and then I feel like a selfish person if say no to them”You are no help to anyone if you don’t have any energy left over at the end of the day.

Give up the feelings of guilt and the idea that you are selfish and rather treasure yourself.
Know that you are not put on this earth to make everyone else happy and to be kind to others.
That doesn’t make you a nasty person.
It makes you human!

I promise you this: if you nurture yourself and take time for yourself and your happiness, you will feel so much more motivated and energised.
And then you will have the ability to give to others.
You will attract more positive and appreciative people into your life which can only make you feel better too.
At this time of the year, when most people are feeling exhausted, give yourself a boost by doing something wonderful for you and feel the difference that it makes.

It is amazing how burn out just seems to “happen”.
People are constantly astounded at how quickly burn out happens and how it happens without any warning.
But who causes burnout?
We do!
Who ignores the signs that burn out is going to happen?
We do!

It is really simple – if you overwork yourself or are overwhelmed by responsibility, you start off being able to cope because your adrenalin keeps you going.
But then, one day you start feeling tired, and you ignore that feeling – often with a cup of coffee or four. Then you start getting headaches, and you ignore those because it is quite simple to be able to just swallow a tablet and carry on.
Then you start feeling irritable and moody or tearful and sad. And that’s a little more difficult to ignore but still you go on – waiting for the weekend or the next holiday or a mythical time when everything is going to be quiet and calm.
Your body doesn’t seem to appreciate that – and if you continue to ignore it screaming at you, it will make you take notice by knocking you right down so that you can’t do anything to ignore it anymore. And burnout and total exhaustion kicks in.

Over the past two days (and I’m sure that it is not going to just stop there) our power supplier has very kindly (not!) cut our electricity twice. Supposedly due to a fault in a substation – though I’m willing to bet that some engineer who was responsible for looking after the station was too burned out to do his job properly and now we are all in the dark (that’s just my theory anyway).
So, there I was with ‘mountains’ of work to do and unable to do it because I needed my computer to work.
And I couldn’t even use my principle source of procrastination (watching TV) either.
I sat in the dark feeling really frustrated, and quite hungry when I suddenly thought “well thank you very much, I wasn’t planning on taking an entire evening off to go to bed early but what other choice do I have?”
So I did – I went to bed at 9pm for the first time in as long as I can remember and had a wonderful night’s sleep.
Thanks Eskom for that!
And it was incredibly simple just to leave everything, even though it was forced, and just have time to nurture myself.

Please don’t wait if you feel that you are burning out. Please don’t ignore the signs that you are burning out.
If you are tired and exhausted and overwhelmed – now is a good time to do something about it.
Nurture yourself – even though you feel that you may fall behind or lose out by not getting things done, eventually you will be energised to do everything that you were meant to do in the first place.
You owe it to yourself!